Lunch Lady and the Bake Sale Bandit

Review: The Lunch Lady has a puzzling crime on her hands when the items for a fund-raising bake sale — some more appetizing than others, but still … — go missing in Lunch Lady and the Bake Sale Bandit, the fifth mystery in this series of graphic novels written and illustrated by Jarrett J. Krosoczka.

The school is preparing for its bake sale, setting cupcakes and other sugary delights on a central table, all while a rainstorm rages on outside. When the electricity suddenly goes out, the Lunch Lady sets out to investigate. The lights come back on as quickly as they went out … but — Jumping Jelly! — not quickly enough to prevent someone from clearing the table of all the goodies. The suspects are numerous, and include an instructor with a fondness for cookies, a coach with a sweet tooth, a janitor not looking forward to cleaning up the inevitable mess, and a health teacher on a campaign to improve kids' diets. But the Lunch Lady thinks a suspicious trail of breadcrumbs is the key to the solution of this mystery.

The school lunch lady as an action hero offers a lot of potential, and the author makes the most of it. The frames are engagingly drawn in black and white with yellow shading, but at times are somewhat busy; it's easy to overlook some of the clever details depicted (such as the "cookie-cam" used by the Lunch Lady to trace the crumbs left by the culprit). The whodunit storyline is well developed, and easy enough for its target audience of 9- to 12-year-old readers to follow.

The Lunch Lady series of graphic novel mysteries should appeal to both girls and boys — everyone can relate to the school lunch lady, right? — with Lunch Lady and the Bake Sale Bandit being a typically entertaining and deserving entry.

Acknowledgment: Random House provided a copy of Lunch Lady and the Bake Sale Bandit for this review.